


I Thought That I Was Dreaming When You Said You Loved Me

by choicescarfsylveon



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bad Ending, Episode: s02e13 Welcome to Earth-2, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-06
Updated: 2017-09-06
Packaged: 2018-12-24 09:00:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12009423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/choicescarfsylveon/pseuds/choicescarfsylveon
Summary: When Barry meets Earth-2 Iris West, he is struck by her confidence, beauty and love for him; finds so much peace in momentarily getting all he wanted, that in the end, he can’t leave her.Alternate ending to 2x13, “Welcome To Earth-2."





	I Thought That I Was Dreaming When You Said You Loved Me

**Author's Note:**

> So I finally started watching this show, and last week I became obsessed and marathon-ed that season 2, and oh my f**king god, watching Barry walk through his doppelgänger’s life on Earth-2 and realizing what “could’ve been” with he and Detective West and his mom was just like. So heartbreaking and so goddamn good and Candice absolutely _killed_ that rendition of Iris
> 
> Anyway, after watching it I toyed with some ideas about just how much meeting Iris-2 might get to Barry
> 
> And this horrible, angst-filled, smut-filled romance is what came of that thought
> 
> I’m sorry
> 
> Title inspired by the lyrics of [“Ivy” by Frank Ocean](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AE005nZeF-A)

_In the halls of your hotel,_  
_Arm around my shoulder so I could tell_  
_How much I meant to you,_  
_Meant it sincere back then,_  
_We had time to kill back then._  
_You ain't a kid no more,_  
_We'll never be those kids again._  
– [x](https://genius.com/Frank-ocean-ivy-lyrics)

 

He doesn’t think he will ever get over the sight of his would-be wife-to-be, _Detective_ Iris West, walking through the Earth-2 CCPD department with her loud and boisterous voice, her brilliant and confident grin, and those sweeping, flattering, high-waisted pants that made everyone around her stop and stare.

Barry immediately thinks _oh my god, Iris is my boss_  and that excites him way more than it probably should. His mind is already dancing through ideas of how much time he has to get himself in trouble with her on purpose—eyes on the gun in the sling around her shoulder and heart racing at how striking, gorgeous and golden she must be on every single planet—just as she’s gripping her hand at his sleeve authoritatively, pulling him aside.

“Can I see you for a second, CSI Allen?”

When she accosts him in the hallway, pressing her body up against him and kissing him contended, headstrong and with purpose, he immediately pushes her off him, embarrassed by how turned on he is by her in a flash and thinking _oh my god no, this is wrong, you can’t kiss her, she doesn’t want you to do that._ The shy and bashful naiveté he’s always had with her, or with the Iris in his world, makes him red in the face like the schoolboy with the crush he’s always been, as she clings to his lapels despite having been stopped.

“Um, what are you doing?” he manages to ask her.

Things are moving so incredibly fast, once she explains.

 _Husband and wife?_  He can't stop repeating the words in his head as she stares him up and down, talking at him fast. _Does this mean I’m the one who hyphenates?_

After her second kiss to him, and her clear intentions to take him wherever she’s going next—"Let's go"—Barry finds himself already settling in deep into this facade, his heart overtaking his vulnerable mind.

"Where are we going?"

He doesn’t even care what she’s going to say when he asks, knowing he would probably follow her to the ends of this Earth, and his.

“Home.”

He is all kinds of emotional just hearing her say the word, the car ride over through their peaceful, sunset-glimmered suburb making him and his resolve crack. This home, when he steps inside of it, is perfect, clean and picturesque and everything he knows she’s always wanted, every white picket fenced dream he’s ever wanted to give to her.

When she starts so easily taking off her clothes in front of him, still he initially wants to feel mortified – though he doesn’t think he’ll ever forget the sight of that black and pink lace bra hugging her chest. As he turns and walks away from her, his face absolutely searing, he realizes the deep, sated level of comfort he's just walked in on her having with him. Being naked around him doesn't, and won't, phase her in the slightest; it makes something in his stomach twist and turn.

Seeing the silver-framed, time-worn photos of them together on the mantle, so regal and happy and strong and unbroken, makes him fear that he's followed this Iris in too deep to stay afloat; how can he go home now, knowing what he knows of this life? How can he not want this to be his life forever?

“Your mom called.”

And that does it; the sinking feeling as he presses the right button on the phone, holds the cold, long receiver to his ear, and hears her voice clear as day.

_“Allen residence?”_

The emotion comes sweeping and pouring itself out of Barry then, and he tries to hold it with a hand over his mouth, blinking back his tears, but it breaks his heart, and he can't take it. He didn't think he'd ever get another chance to be with her, that time would only bend itself once for his sake. But he realizes right now, that he could see her. He could stay right here and see her beautiful, red head of hair, and those wise, kind, gentle eyes, and give her those grandchildren she mentions, and maybe they could all go to Atlantis one day.

“Baby, what’s wrong?”

Barry turns to see that Iris has re-entered in angelic, white-gold slip and floral robe. The novelty of spending every night with her like this makes him think. _When will I ever get a chance at this perfection ever again?_ He knows he can’t stay here, he knows that, but damn it if he doesn't want to milk this quiet and blissful utopia, just for one night, for all the healing powers it might be worth. 

He’ll go, he’ll go back to S.T.A.R. Labs, he promises himself, and Wells (okay, not Wells) or at least Cisco will understand, why he has to stay and live through the rest of this day, right?

“We should get ready, then,” Iris is saying.

“Yeah.” Barry lets her lead him up the stairs into the hall, before remembering how clueless he actually is. “Um, where are we going, again?”

“The Jitterbug, silly, where we always go.” She turns around and grins at him. “To go see Daddy sing.”

“Joe is...he's a singer?”

“Joseph,” she corrects him with a slight, adorable frown. “Only the best in Central City.”

Gazing on her, he can't help but be in awe of her in this new outfit; how stunning, natural and bare she looks to him in it, is doing seriously dizzying to his head. He can’t imagine how his doppelgänger manages to get anything done with her around.

At what he assumes must be an absolutely dumbstruck look on his face, Iris-2 stops them in the hall; cradles his face with both her hands affectionately, babydoll eyes blinking up at him simply.

“What?”

He returns her gesture with shaking hands, pressing his palms to her warm, chocolate skin. When he runs his pad of his thumb over her bottom lip, that gentle gesture he’d been dying to do a hundred times over, she lets him; lets him toy with the viscosity of her skin there, nestling her face against his palm.

“You’re just the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen in my life,” he says, breathless. “You always will be.”

She grins wide. “I’d sure hope so.”

She kisses him, with so much knowing, sureness and power that it breaks him.

“You are stuck with me for the rest of your life,” she whispers.

So finally, Barry lets himself go, kissing her back with all the passion and fervor he’s been holding back. His head spins at the actual, tangible feel of her curves in his hands, the dips and swells of her hips and her thighs that he’d memorized the shape of visually all his life. It isn’t long before he’s realizing how free he is to love her fully here, moving to kiss her neck and grab her ass, losing himself in the sweet, so familiar scent of her skin (how does she smell the exact same way on both Earths?).

“Mm, baby,” she says, her voice dipping to that dangerously low and sinful place it only ever used to go on accident. “Are we playing hooky on Daddy again tonight? You know how much he hates it when you keep me from him.”

“No, no, we can go—” He attempts to do the polite thing one last time, but when she pulls him in and starts kissing him again, his brain short circuits. “After, after this—”

She pushes him backwards down the hallway and into their bedroom, and it’s a walk he suddenly feels the two of them have made so many nights like this; once inside she slams the door behind her, and it’s too much, the way she returns to him with force and the way she unabashedly feels up his cock through his pants, grabbing him and letting him know just what she wants.

She pushes him onto his back on their bed, grins wickedly and says, “Wait here for me.” She flits across the room and disappears into the bathroom, and Barry truly feels his most desperate fight or flight moment to date.

Looking to his left and right at the steampunk-ian clothes and trinkets of a Bartholomew who isn’t him, the words Earth-1 Iris said to him just before he left her come back to his mind, causing tears to spring them and sting once more.

 _“I want to make sure you’re not doing this because you think you have nothing left here anymore,”_ she said. He’d told her it wasn’t, and perhaps in that moment he’d believed it; but it’s true, he thinks now, he knows it is, that his life there was starting to feel like a wasteland full of casualties he’d caused. Things are irrevocably different with her in that world, because he’s the only reason she might ever be available to want him, the reason Eddie had to die. To want her now, that version of her? It would be sick, and make him feel riddled with guilt, like he was capitalizing on Eddie’s death.

But did that mean that he still didn’t love her? That she wasn’t the moon in his sky, that he didn’t wish to come home to her every night? So now, Iris-2 appears from the bathroom doorway, wearing that slip and inching it up her hips as she walks towards him, showing him she’s naked underneath, her brown thighs as perfect as he imagined them, her pubic hair shaved down to a thin, black strip for him. This is every dream he’s ever had, every chance he’s ever wanted to re-write time, and see her in a world without the pain he caused; can he really do this now, with no consequences?

Iris climbs on top of him and ruts her naked hips against the tent in his pants, kisses him passionately, and he surrenders. Letting her lips take all his doubts, fears, and pain away.

She stops for a moment to stare down at him, and there is so much warmth certainty radiating from her expression, compounded by what must’ve been a decade of this act between them.

“I love you so much,” she says to him.

This is still her, still the Iris that he has always known, Barry can feel it in his soul; she will always be his Iris and he will always be her Barry, no matter what universe they find each other in.

He means it so much more than she will ever know, when he says it back.

“I love you, too.”

Barry can’t believe that he’s finally consummating that love as Iris takes off his clothes, and then removes her own slip. He lets his hands revel in her naked form, gently squeezing her supple, black nipples and waist, before she decides she’s going to slink between his legs, work her hands up and down his member. Iris draws her tongue up the length of him, slow and teasing and her beautiful black eyes never leaving his, and then the feeling of her covering him entirely with her mouth is over too soon, as she makes it clear that that was only to prepare him.

Iris props herself up on her knees over him, rubs her wet slit over the head of his cock a couple times before finally inching herself down over it, moaning loud and unashamed once she’s got him all inside her. Barry can’t help the humiliating groans he emits at how insanely, unbelievably good her small, tight body feels around him, at how much of a goddess she is as she starts spinning her hips over him rapidly, the way she laughs and throws her head back when she’s about to come.

“Oh my god, Barry, yes, yes,” she sings as he thrusts up against her erratically. He feels her whole body tighten as her pussy squeezes around him in her orgasm, and after she’s finished, she half collapses onto him, chest heaving and sighs like music to his ears. He stays inside of her, wrapping his arms around her and feeling her still pulsing around him in her aftershocks, sure the second she starts moving again, he’s going to lose it too.

“Now its your turn,” she says into his ear.

She sits back up and starts rolling her hips, biting her lip and Barry can’t, he can’t take this; her wielding that beautiful smile down at the mess she’s making of him, damn near vindictively.

“Yeah?” she encourages him. “Yeah, you like how I fuck you, baby?”

“Oh, Iris, oh fuck, fuck, fuck—“

Barry comes at the sound of her laughter, shutting his eyes and feeling tears break through them again, spurred on by the heightened emotions of the moment, the images of her he’ll now have forever. She hums all the way through his last few thrusts inside her, clearly finding pleasure in him finding his.

She keeps him inside as he comes down from the closest thing he’ll ever feel to heaven, and then Barry can feel her leaning forward to kiss his shut eyelids, his damp cheeks, his jawline.

“You are so,” Barry says between her kisses, the words escaping him, “I’ve just—never deserved you, Iris—“

She kisses him on the mouth to shut him up.

“Nonsense,” she chastises gently. “You are all the man I’ll ever need.”

When she climbs off of him and lies beside him, Barry finally lets himself look at her again. She is reaching a graceful, brown arm across the end table on her side of the bed, examining a beautiful silver clock in her hand.

“Alright, mister,” she says, playful authority returning to her voice, “off to Jitterbug, or Daddy will really have with a fit with us—”

“Please, can we just—“ The surge of emotion he felt at hearing his mother’s voice, at knowing he was going to lose it as soon as it came, catches in his throat and tightens his chest, and he desperately wants this moment to last as long as it can. “Can we stay here, tonight?”

For a moment, she stares at him deeply and searchingly, knowing there is something deeper to the pain she’s seeing in him. Barry thinks he sees a flash of recognition in those eyes, that this might not be _exactly_ her Barry before her.

Regardless, she doesn’t fear this prospect at all. Her expression softens as she cradles her faces in his hands once again, and nods seriously.

“Okay.”

He holds her in his arms, and sleep washes over his exhaustion like a spell; all that night, he has dreams of her with imagery like the ones he saw in the photographs.

All those dreams seem to tell him that he can really do this, somehow he can defeat Zoom in the morning and replace this Barry afterwards, live in this fantasy forever.

In the middle of the night, she wakes him with a hand stroking his dick back to hardness, kissing his chest with her needs and requests for him.

“I want you again,” she says against his skin, “please, Barry, I need you again right now—“

This time Barry doesn’t let his awe of it being the first time take control, turning her over onto her other side, hands caressing her chest and nose buried in the crook of her neck. She keeps trying to sink back onto his cock, so he remedies her, guiding himself in and then pulsing, giving her all he’s got and she’s practically screaming by the end of it.

He is spent three times over when he finally dozes off again, exhausted and in and out of dreams as much as nightmares. He wakes again at dawn to faint humming and buzzing; no sooner does he realize it’s the crackling of electricity, and no sooner does he lay eyes on Iris’s form illuminated by blue light, does his gut twist in realization.

“No, Zoom—“

Barry zaps to accost the black creature oscillating at the food of their bed, but naked, unprepared and in shock, he moves too late. He hears the most heartbreaking sound of Iris screaming as Zoom sweeps him into a deathly choke-hold against the wall, strangling and squeezing the life out of his body.

“You aren’t supposed to be here, Flash.”

He tries activating his powers to fight back, but already can’t breathe enough to get the speed he needs to escape, already blacking out from the death grip on his throat, the lack of oxygen.

“Just—“ he manages, choking out his words, “don’t kill her. Please.”

Zoom laughs and turns Barry so he can see her, in his blurred, teary vision, for the last time.

“Was it worth it, Flash? To live a life you were never meant to live?”

And he supposes this is right, after all he took from her in her other life, for him to die for that transgression. For one last night he got to show her, in his own way, how much he loved her, and how sorry he truly was.

Until his dying breath, for her it would be worth it.

“Yes.”


End file.
